


Not Completely Powerless After All

by ChimaeraKitten



Category: DCU (Comics), Powerless (TV 2017), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Emily is friends with everybody, Gen, I knew I'd be writing Powerless fic eventually I just didn't know it would be this soon, M/M, Superheroes, Tim Drake visits fic, Tim is a mystery, Will almost certainly be canon-divergent eventually, just not mentioning some events in the last two episodes, not an Identity reveal, secret identity shenanigans, so not canon-divergent, still not sure about a sequel, unashamedly self-indulgent, well apparently it was canceled, welp, written before there was much canon to diverge from, yes editing we do not die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChimaeraKitten/pseuds/ChimaeraKitten
Summary: Nobody was quite prepared for the kid who runs the company to visit, but they manage, in fact, they might be pleasantly surprised; they weren't expecting him to be nice. Of course, they weren't expecting him to be a possible ninja either, but you gotta take the good with the bad.





	1. A Visit From the Boss's Boss

**Author's Note:**

> There was a post on Tumblr about how the show has a perfect opportunity for the Batkids to visit as civilians. It got me thinking, and this is the result.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody is quite sure what to make of this guy.

Emily should have known today would be crazy when Van pulled her into his office the second she got to work. Then again, she’s been hoping it was more praise from corporate. No such luck.

Emily got her first clue that this _whole week_ was going to be crazy when he closed the office door, pulled all the blinds, and gave her a look that made her want to ask if he’d been dosed with fear toxin. He looked rabid and crazed, like a starving wild animal.

Scared to spook him, she spoke slowly. “Something wrong, Mr. Wayne?”

Usually just calling him by his name would be enough to calm him down, he always loved being reminded that he was a Wayne, but not today. Today, it just made him more agitated.

“Emily, something terrible has happened,” He whispered, fearful.

Emily couldn’t help that her heart jumped into her throat. “What, Mr. Wayne?”

He looked over her shoulder at the closed door before answering in a strained whisper, “Tim Wayne is coming. Here. Today. This very afternoon.” He said it in a way one might announce an impending asteroid strike.

Emily furrowed her brow a bit, confused. “Ok, so we just spruce up a bit, like we always do for visits from bigwigs.”

Van shook his head in panic and grabbed her by the shoulders, startling her. “Emily, Emily, Emily, _Emily_. No, you don’t understand. Tim Wayne… Tim Wayne is…” He broke away, circling back to his desk. He sat down, putting his face in his hands.

Respectfully, she took the visitor seat in front of the desk. “I don’t see what’s so bad about Tim Wayne. Sure, he pretty much runs the company but he…”

“No…” Van moaned, muffled by his hands. “You don’t understand. Tim Wayne is dangerous. He holds all our jobs in his hands like…” He floundered. “…Like a robin’s eggs, fragile and easily crushed.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—“ She tried, but he interrupted.

“They call him ‘the wraith’ at corporate you know. He crushes dreams. He sucks the soul out of every branch he visits. He _destroys_ them, Emily, every place that has earned his ire. And if he’s visiting here, it means that we must have done something to get on his hit list.”

“I’m sure it can’t be _that_ bad.” Emily tried to laugh it off. “I mean, isn’t he legally your um… first cousin once removed? And only 19? He can’t be that scary.”

He spread his fingers to look at her

“You ever hear of the Opal City WayneTech R&D branch?”

“N-no.”

“That’s because he _demolished_ it. Literally and figuratively. He made an unscheduled visit, _just like now_ , and by the time he left, a week later, the Opal City branch of WayneTech was gone.”

Ok, that did sound bad, but Emily wasn’t about to let it get to her.” I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, “I’m sure he just… heard about our recent success, and decided to visit!”

He flapped a hand at her. “Go, tell the rabble that they’ll be fired by the end of the day.”

Emily sighed. As she left, she heard him mumble: “Wish I’d been transferred to Gotham while I had the chance.”

 

* * *

 

Van was still in a panic at the Monday morning projects meeting. About five minutes in he abandoned all pretense. He sat down and ceded the floor to Emily.

She stood up. “Alright guys, we need the prototype fire-hail resistant coat by Monday. But before we break, there’s some… news.”

Everyone looked at her. It was rare she told them any news that she didn’t try to spin into ‘good news’, so they knew this was serious.

“Tim Wayne is making a surprise visit this afternoon, and he’ll be staying all week.”

To her surprise, everyone except Van relaxed.

“Geeze Emily, you scared us,” Ron said.

“Yeah,” Teddy added, “We actually thought it would be bad news.”

“I… was led to believe it was.” She looked at Van. “I was led to believe it meant all our jobs were in jeopardy.”

Ron looked at Van funny. “Why would you tell her that? From what I’ve heard, he’s pretty nice.”

Van looked up. “Seriously? None of you know about Opal City?”

Teddy frowned. “Wasn’t the head of that branch selling company secrets to LexCorp?”

“Yeah, and most of the people working there just got transferred to the Coast City branch. With nice reimbursements for the move and the trauma from the explosion.” Ron said.

“Really?” Emily asked. “Sounds like something that would have made the news.”

“It was all very hush-hush,” Teddy said, “Supposedly because there was _at least_ one vigilante involved.”

Van cut in. “There was also Wayne Transportation in Metropolis, and Wayne Pharmaceuticals in Keystone.”

Nobody knew enough to refute that, so they adjourned the meeting, all at least a little bit anxious now.

It was just after lunch when Jackie informed Van that Mr. Wayne’s plane had landed, and that he could arrive any minute.

Van, clearly worked into frenzy, dragged Emily downstairs with him. They waited for what felt like hours but was _probably_ less than 20 minutes before a car pulled up to the building.

Emily wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting (a limo?) but that car surprised her. It was clearly a rental (albeit a high-end one) and it didn’t even have a chauffer. Tim Wayne, one of the richest men in America, had driven _himself_.

She watched him get out of the car, blinking owlishly in the Charm City sunlight. He stepped up onto the curb, and Emily took the opportunity to examine him.

He was short, really short, shorter than her, and not thin, exactly, but slim, or maybe that was just that his clothes hung a bit to loosely on his frame. He was wearing a suit that Emily was willing to bet was worth three months of her salary, and he was carrying a black messenger bag which, though a bit childish, still have off an air of class and money. All in all, his clothes were exactly what one might expect from a nineteen year old billionaire.

It was everything _else_ about his appearance that ruined it.

He walked with a slight hitch, and Emily remembered he’d been shot a couple of years ago. His hair, though well kept, was still about six months past needing a haircut.

But his most striking feature had to be his eyes. Where Emily expected to see Van’s cheerful self-assuredness, she instead found something else entirely. Something unnerving and subtly horrifying. It wasn’t just that the dark circles under his eyes made them look like they were sunken deep into his skull (though that certainly was part of it) or the spark of cunning, cold intelligence in them. No, the thing that seemed so wrong about his eyes was the dead, hollow look in them.

His eyes were completely incongruous with the easy smile he wore. Emily suddenly understood why people at corporate called him “the wraith,” he looked like he was ready to suck the soul out of a victim.

Emily realized with a start that she’d been staring into Tim Wayne’s eyes long enough for it to pass awkward and go straight to mortifying. Had she really just waxed poetic about tired he looked? God, she needed to dial it down. Plus, he’d almost certainly noticed the weird lady making uncomfortable eye contact.

He offered her his hand, and she realized he’d introduced himself, and, judging by his expression, probably asked a question as well.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said, I haven’t met you before. You the new R&D director?”

Remembering her manners, she met his eyes again and replied, “I’m Emily Locke, pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wayne… or would you prefer Mr. Drake?”

He made a face, and a big part of what was unnerving about him vanished. “Please, call me Tim. Mr. Drake was my father. Mr. Wayne is… my other father. I’m only 19,” He laughed, “I don’t want to be called ‘Mr. Wayne’ yet.”

It took her a second to realize he was waiting for a response. “Alright then, Mr.-um-Tim.” That felt wrong somehow, even though she was older than him. She didn’t have time to ponder it, however, because Van gave his cousin a very anxious (and sweaty) hello, and then corralled them all toward the elevator.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Earth to Emily.”

She looked up to see Teddy leaning over her desk.

“Hi Teddy,” she said absently, “Need something?”

“We were all just wondering how long you were going to bore holes in Van’s office door with your eyes.”

She blinked. “Was it that obvious?”

“Super obvious,” Ron said from somewhere behind her. She spun her chair around to face him.

"You’ve been doing it for 20 minutes, and it’s starting to get creepy,” Teddy added.

She shook herself a bit. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

Wendy, appearing out of nowhere, snorted. “She’s probably just daydreaming about how cute Tim Wayne is.”

“Ew! God no,” Emily said, “He’s nineteen; _at least_ five years too young for me. Not to mention _engaged_.”

“I thought he and Tam Fox broke it off?” Teddy asked.

“He and his boyfriend got engaged three months ago,” Emily explained.

“Wow Emily, Did not peg you for a follower of celebrity gossip,” Ron said.

“I read up on him this morning,” Emily said by way of an answer.

“Good ol’ boring Emily, doing the research,” Wendy said.

Ron shrugged. “’Least she’s well informed.”

“Well informed about what?” A voice said behind her.

Emily just about jumped out of her skin, spinning her chair back around to face the voice.

Tim Wayne leaned on her desk with a vague look of absent curiosity on his face. His approach had been completely silent. It was a big change from Van, who always liked to announce his presence.

Following that train of thought, the first thing Emily could think to say was, “Where’s Van-er- Mr. Wayne?”

“He said he’s ‘sending important Emails’ but I think he’s just trying to recover.” He smirked conspiratorially. “I think he’s afraid of me.”

“He just left you alone?”

“He tried to dump me on his assistant, Jackie, I think her name was? But I told her I’d rather show myself around. It’s easier that way, and I don’t want to disrupt anyone’s work.” He smiled again.

He was disrupting everyone just by being here, but that was considerate of him. He didn’t even seem threatening at all, leaning on her desk like an average teenager. And while he still looked tired, he didn’t have that pained look he had earlier, the unsettling one. Emily found herself relaxing. Maybe everything would be fine.

Of course, that was when her coworkers got involved.

“So you’re Tim Wayne.” Teddy said, instead of a greeting.

“Just Tim is fine, and I’d prefer Tim Drake anyways.” He shook Teddy’s hand. “You are?”

“Teddy, and that’s Ron, this is Wendy—“ he gestured. “—and you ‘ve met Emily.”

Ron waved and Wendy grunted.

“It’s nice to meet you all.” Tim said, and it really did sound genuine. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

“Really?” Emily was surprised.

“Well, I’ve heard a lot of good things about Van lately. Mostly from Van. But I know he’s not the one doing the actual work.”

Everyone, even Wendy, looked pleased with the praise, and Emily marveled at how he managed to say exactly the right thing, insulting their boss and uplifting them in the same sentence. She was pretty sure there was a page on that in her business book.

“So,” he continued, “You’re Wayne Security’s R&D department. Working on anything interesting?”

This was a cue for the others to lead him away from Emily’s desk, Ron explaining how they were working on backup prototypes right now, while they waited for one of their big projects to get green lit by corporate. Tim asked some pretty advanced technical questions, and Ron and Teddy seemed happy to explain their ideas to someone who actually understood. Even Wendy seemed charmed.

Emily’s day returned to almost normal after that, though everytime she looked up she saw Tim Drake chatting up a different employee. It seemed random, until Emily realized he was systematically working his way around the office. At five, when she packed up, he turned around and gave her a little wave, which was crazy because there was no way he’d noticed her watching. She hadn’t been _that_ obvious.

On the bus ride home, she couldn’t help but turn her mind to the puzzle that was Tim Drake. She resolved to herself that she’d have him figured out by the time he left on Friday.


	2. Ninjas, Boomerangs, and Tragic Backstories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first half of day two commences, now with more projectile weapons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this early because I finished my essay and then opened my email to find a couple of really nice comment notifications. thank you nice commenters! I feel like I'm setting a bad precedent by letting praise get me to post a chapter early, but screw it. (as long as y'all don't abuse your powers we'll be fine)

Tim and Van didn’t show up until ten the next morning. Van looked refreshed from a morning shirking his work. Tim, on the other hand… she thought he would look less haggard after sleep and time to recover from jet lag, but if anything he looked even more exhausted, like he hadn’t slept at all. Watching him chug some horrible energy drink, she wondered if maybe that might actually be the case.

Van entered his office, but Tim stayed outside, examining the “Wayne Dream Team” photo on the wall. He looked… confused, and maybe a little bit frustrated. Emily went to see what was up.

She was about to ask when he spoke up. “You know, I always forget how white and male some of our divisions are. At corporate, we’re all used to the extended Fox family calling the shots.”

Emily laughed. “Well, around here, Jackie does all the shots-calling, and Van just sort of… putters around.”

Tim looked at her, face unreadable, and Emily realized what she said. She tried to backtrack. “I mean, Mr. Wayne is a great boss and—“

“Relax. We’re all well aware how Van is. There’s a reason Bruce shot down every one of his applications to transfer to the Gotham office for years.”

“What about when this branch was about to get shut down?”

“Necessity. Can’t fire him, not when his last name is Wayne. We were going to stick him behind a desk with a fancy title and no real power where he couldn’t do any damage. Hope he fled the crazy in the Gotham office within a few months.”

“He’s wanted to move there for ages. You really think he’d flee?” She asked.

Tim sized her up. “You ever been to Gotham, Emily?”

“Just once, for a weekend.” She squirmed a bit under his appraising gaze.

“All he problems you have with capes here in Charm are peanuts compared to Gotham. Trust me. It only takes getting tortured by Two-Face or held hostage by the Joker once to make someone like Van run for the hills.”

Emily saw an opportunity to get information. “But not you?”

“What?”

“Van would run, but you stay in Gotham.”

“I’m a Gothamite. Lived there pretty much my whole life. I was there for the worst of it after the quake. It’s gonna take more than getting held hostage a couple times to make me run.”

If anyone else had said something like that, it would have sounded like posturing, but with Tim it rang true. Emily didn’t really have a way to respond to the weirdly intense statement though, so she said, “I’ve got to get back to work.”

He smiled at her, guessing why she wanted to end the conversation. “You think Jackie has any headshots I can photoshop onto Van’s face?”

Emily couldn’t tell if he was joking.

 

* * *

 

Three hours and one Van-freak-out later (Tim, apparently, hadn’t been joking) Emily had finally managed to wrangle her co-workers/employees into actual work when Tim stuck his head into the testing room.

Unfortunately Ron had just thrown a rubber ninja star across the room and it seemed to home in on Tim like a missile. His eyes went wide and he ducked just in time for it to pass harmlessly over his head. Not that it would have been that dangerous even if it _had_ hit him, seeing as it was rubber.

“Oh my god, Ron, you are now banned from throwing anything ever.” Teddy said.

“Are you OK!?” Emily yelled across the room. She couldn’t think of a work faux pas worse than injuring her boss.

Tim popped back up, completely unruffled. “I’m fine. Testing something?”

“We were testing how the batarang-proof backpack fared against other weapons. Except none of us can throw,” Wendy informed him.

“See, corporate says they can’t market a batarang-proof backpack except to people who would reasonably expect to have batarangs thrown at them. Which is criminals. So we’ve got to find another purpose for it,” Teddy elaborated. He gestured to the table, which was covered in various weapons. “We’re testing them, but none of us can throw for shit.”

“Well, we can throw. Just not accurately.” Ron cut in.

Tim looked confused. “You’re testing with rubber weapons?”

“We switched for target practice after we did more damage to the wall than the dummy.” Teddy pointed to the far wall, which did indeed have several weapons stuck in it. Two dummies stood in front of it, completely untouched. One of them was labeled “control” the other was labeled “test” and was wearing a backpack on it’s front like a baby carrier.

Emily thought the labels were unnecessary, but Tim examined them as if they held engrossing information.

After a second he said, “Why don’t you let me try?”

“Uh, sure.” Teddy offered him a rubber shuriken. Tim ignored it in favor of one of the real ones on the table.

Emily, Ron and Wendy scrambled to get out of the way when he picked it up. After their dismal attempts at accuracy, they knew the only safe place in the room was behind the blast wall meant for explosives testing.

They needn’t have bothered; Tim’s accuracy was perfect. The star flew across the room and sank into the control dummy’s forehead, right between it’s eyes.

Ron popped up from behind the blast wall. “Whoa! Nice shot!”

Tim looked flustered. “I uh, I was aiming for the other dummy, actually.”

“Still more accurate than anything we managed,” Added Teddy.

They had Tim throw most of the remaining live weapons into the control dummy, (his accuracy dipped, then improved until he was hitting center mass each time) before everyone walked downrange to inspect it.

“Well, as predicted, this dummy is _dead_ ,” Ron said.

Teddy tried and failed to remove a throwing knife buried up to its hilt in the dummy. “Wow Tim, you’re either very strong or very, very angry.”

Emily had gotten used to Tim saying weird, creepy, enigmatic things, so his candid answer of: “I work out a lot to impress girls,” threw her for a loop.

Evidently it surprised Teddy too, because he barked a laugh and yanked the knife out of the dummy so suddenly he elbowed Ron in the stomach.

“Oops, sorry Ron.” (Ron groaned) “Tim, don’t you have a fiancé?”

Tim stared pulling projectiles out of the dummy with much more ease than Teddy. “Have you _seen_ a photo of my fiancé? He’s the most attractive man imaginable. I have to work out so people don’t think I’m some weird middle schooler he’s hanging out with. I’m certainly short enough.”

Emily politely didn’t mention that no middle schooler looked as haggard and close to death as Tim did.

They all ferried armfuls if weapons back to the table at the other end of the room. “So we’re gonna need you to throw all of these again, at the test dummy this time,” Teddy said.

Tim shrugged. “Not like I’ve got anything else to do around here. Other than going to another meeting with Van, and I’m not in a rush to do that.”

Once again, hearing him put Van down boosted everyone’s mood.

Teddy continued to banter with Tim while he, Wendy, and Ron recorded which weapons bounced off the backpack and which ones went right through.

When Tim was once again out of projectiles everyone crowded around the dummy.

“Damn,” Wendy said, “Only the throwing stars bounced off 100% of the time.”

“Ninja-proof backpack?” Ron offered.

“Who would even buy a Ninja-proof backpack?” Teddy asked.

“People who are afraid of ninjas?”

“You know—“ Tim looked up from his inspection of the backpack’s lining. “—Captain Boomerang’s boomerangs run about three to five ounces and 14 inches long. Add another layer of fine gauge steel mesh, and you could market this in Central and Keystone as a boomerang proof backpack.”

“Why do you have boomerang statistics memorized?” Ron wondered.

Emily’s head shot up, alarm bells going off in her head. She tried to give Ron a desperate _‘shut up’_ gesture, but it was too late.

“Yeah, that is really weird,” Teddy added.

Tim didn’t- well, he didn’t flinch, exactly. It was more like an anti-flinch. He went completely still.

Emily attempted to change the subject. “Well! We should take theses test results and—“

“Thanks Emily, but it’s fine,” Tim said softly. He turned to Teddy and Ron. “Captain Boomerang killed my father. It’s hard _not_ to remember the murder weapon.”

“Oh.” Teddy, for once, was at a loss for words.

Wendy broke the stifling silence. “That’s really fucked up.”

Tim barked a startled laugh, though it sounded pained. “It really is.”

Desprate to ease the tension, Ron said “That is a good idea though. We’ll run some tests.”

“I can’t put off talking to Van any longer. Tell me how your tests go!” Tim waved as he left, smiling like the conversation hadn’t just turned down the darkest path imaginable.

Once the door closed behind him the tension in the room eased.

“Okay, so I did _not_ mean to be insensitive,” Ron said.

“Yeah well, ya did anyway,” Snarked Wendy.

“You’re the one who thought ‘that’s really fucked up’ was an appropriate response,” Teddy interjected.

“Hey! At least I said something! You would have had us standing around in awkward silence for—“

“Guys!” Emily yelled, “Arguing isn’t going to change anything. Why don’t you get working on those boomerang tests? I’ll go talk to Jackie about getting a proposal put together.”

“Yeah okay. But we’re gonna need another prototype. And someone to throw the boomerangs. That’s just a disaster waiting to happen,” Ron explained.

“Something gives me the feeling that your new pal Tim won’t be up for throwing those for us.” Wendy added.

“I’ll find someone.” Emily replied. “You guys get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a bunch of rubber ninja stars. They’re the best thing on earth and only really hurt if they hit you in the eye. Also Tim accidentally showed how accurate he was on the first throw, then purposely messed up to cover for it, if that’s unclear from Emily’s POV.


	3. Real Robin vs. Robin Cosplayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Van's irrational fear of his cousin may or may not be justified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really ran up against the limits of Emily’s POV this chapter. Tim has a lot going on that she doesn’t really know about, and I don’t know if I can actually reveal any of it without making the secret seem obvious. I’d like to repeat that this isn’t an identity reveal fic, so there’s a big swath of the plot that I’m gonna hand wave. I may have to do an epilogue from Tim’s POV to explain some things, but the plot you don’t see is pretty straightforward, so maybe I’ll just leave it to the imagination and keep writing fun office hijinks.  
> And for reference, the way I set this timeline, Tim started as Robin in 2012, and he’s nineteen in 2017. So when they refer to “2012 model Robin,” that’s Tim they’re referring to.

Emily didn’t see Tim Drake again until her late-afternoon “coffee” break (if the office coffee qualified as coffee) He was… was he pouring Red Bull in his coffee?

“You know that’s probably really bad for you,” She said.

“What?” He looked up. “Hm? Oh yeah.”

It might have been rude, but Emily said what she was thinking anyway. “You look dead.”

He snorted. “Thanks. I get that a lot.”

He seemed content to sip not-coffee in silence, but Emily had more to say. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier.”

He took another sip before responding. “It’s fine. It was actually a refreshing change. I’m used to people whispering about it behind my back. Getting asked outright was kind of… nice."

She watched him for a moment, deciding not to tell him that might have been the saddest thing she’d ever heard. Instead she said, “You’re different from how I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“We’ve had bigwigs visit here before. Van’s dad, for one. The way Van was talking about you made it sound like you were… um…”

“A pretentions, rich, asshole?”

“Well I wouldn’t use those words, but… Van’s the boss. And his dad is his boss. I expected the biggest boss in the company to be more bossy. But you’re not bossy.”

“I think that sentence has too many uses o the word ‘boss.’”

Emily ducked her head, embarrassed. “You actually seem nice. And relatively normal. I mean, Van said they call you ‘the wraith’ at corporate. That gave me a… different impression.”

“Ha! They call me that because I look like a zombie without coffee. Van takes that seriously?”

Emily smiled. “He kept mentioning the Opal City WayneTech branch. He said you ‘literally demolished it.’”

He frowned a little. “Does he know that Red Robin busted the head of that branch for selling company secrets to LexCorp? And also, we tore the building down because it was structurally unsound after the bomb went off.”

“There was a bomb?”

He nodded seriously. “’Twas on that day that I swore I’d learn how to defuse a bomb, lest the next time I faced one, there was no convenient vault to stick it in.”

“He also mentioned something in Keystone and Metropolis?”

“Wayne Transportation and Wayne Pharm? Transportation got reabsorbed into WayneTech, and Pharm moved because the Trickster kept stealing chemical shipments.”

‘Huh. So there was no reason to be afraid of you at all?”

“ _Well_ I wouldn’t say _no_ reason—“ He interrupted his statement with a sip of coffee. “—But I didn’t come here to shut you guys down.”

Emily decided it was time to strike at the heart of the problem. “Why did you come here then?”

“On paper? To assess this branch’s operation, and find out how the laughingstock of WE became our fastest-growing profit margin overnight.” He smiled. “Van made a good choice when he hired you. You’ve made a lot of improvements around here, Emily. People are starting to notice.”

She blushed. “Th-thanks. It’s a group effort.” Then she realized she’d let him distract her with praise. “Wait, on paper? What’s the not-on-paper reason?”

He hummed. “I need to be in Charm for some personal business. I’m killing to birds with one stone. It’s like a working vacation.”

She tried to tell if he was avoiding the question and wanted her to shut up, or just being shy. What the hell, she went for it. “What kind of personal business?”

His smile was less kind this time. A step closer to her first impression of him. “Nothing important. If you’ll excuse me Emily, I’ve got to finish some work.”

She’d overstepped. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s fine. I’ve just been neglecting some Emails.” He made an attempt to sound cheery, but it sounded fake to her. “See you later.”

Emily silently cursed herself for overplaying her hand. She really needed to learn to let things go. She could have just accepted that he wasn’t here to fire her and left it at that, but no, she had to try to dig in farther. She had to play detective. It didn’t even matter anyway. He’d be gone in a few more days and she’d never think about him again.

Whatever he was doing in Charm certainly wouldn’t affect her.

 

* * *

 

Emily didn’t talk to Tim again that afternoon. In fact, she didn’t see him around the office at all. She wondered if he was in a meeting with Van or something, but she could see Van strumming the guitar in his office.

When she still hadn’t seen him by noon the next day she concluded he must have been avoiding her. Well, she told herself, it wasn’t her problem. If she saw him again she’d apologize properly, but she didn’t need to. She had nothing to prove. She didn’t care. Being socially awkward didn’t eat her up at night at all.

In spite of herself she found that she kept looking up, hoping to spot him somewhere in the office, and after lunch she found herself asking Jackie if she’d seen him.

“No, I haven’t. I don’t think he’s even come in yet. Maybe he was up late enjoying Charm city’s nightlife. It _is_ less deadly than Gotham’s,” she joked.

“What’s less deadly than Gotham?”

Emily yelped in surprise and spun around. The first words she could force out of her mouth were “Are you a ninja!?”

Tim Drake, prodigy, billionaire, possible ninja, just smiled. “You can’t prove anything.”

Taking her cues from his playful tone, she replied. “Don’t let Ron and Teddy hear you say that. They’ll take it to mean you’re a superhero.”

“Me, a superhero? I’d be flattered.”

“If you two are done bantering.” Jackie spoke up dryly. “Mr. Drake is twenty minutes overdue to meet with the head of HR.”

“Yuck. I better get to that. Bye Emily! Bye Jackie!” He walked off -in the wrong direction.

“Other way!” Emily called.

He didn’t respond, but did change direction. The movement gave Emily another look at his walk. She found. Was he limping worse? As far as she knew, two-year-old spinal injuries didn’t regularly cause people to randomly limp.

“Hey, Jackie? Do you think there’s something… off about Mr. Drake?”

“Besides the fact that he’s an attractive, overworked, nineteen year old orphan billionaire with clear insomnia and possible daddy issues?”

Emily gave Jackie a quizzical look. Had the others told her about yesterday’s incident? “Besides that.”

Jackie looked up. “Hm. Maybe. I don’t really care.” She went back to her work.

“Well, if you won’t help, I’ll just have to figure out the mystery on my own.”

Without looking up again, Jackie said, “You do that.”

"I will!” Emily walked of in no direction in particular, leaving Jackie to her mood.

She ended up getting pulled into the testing room to observe Alex from accounting throwing boomerangs at a backpack-wearing dummy. All but one of them bounced off, and Emily approved the recently dubbed “’rang reducer” (they really needed a better name) for further testing and development. Alex went back to accounting.

After that, as it often did, the conversation around the table turned to ranking superheroes: in this case, Batman’s sidekicks.

“I’m telling you, if we’re going by pure fighting ability, it’s Black Bat 100%,” Ron was saying.

“But she’s not a tactician. The long game matters more. I’d put Red Robin on top,” Teddy argued.

“What about Huntress?” Emily asked.

“Is she even affiliated with Batman?”

“I’d say Red Hood’s the best one,” Wendy chimed in, “He’s more effective than everyone else.”

“He murdered people!”

“Yeah, and you’re just saying that because you think he’s hot.” Ron accused.

“If you ask me, Nightwing is the best.” Tim’s voice came from somewhere behind Ron, which was ridiculous because that was the opposite direction from the door.

Ron yelped and Wendy swore. Emily, slightly more used to his antics by now, barely flinched. “Seriously, are you a ninja?” She demanded.

“Nah, just naturally quiet.”

Emily bit back a retort mentioning that there was no way he was naturally quiet with a limp like he had. Instead she asked. “You a Nightwing fan?”

Tim nodded. “He’s the superior Bat. Handles a whole city by himself. None of the others do that.”

There was something off about that answer. “Wait,” She said, realizing what it was. “Wasn’t it Red Robin who saved your life?”

“You mean, failed to keep me from getting shot? Not exactly his biggest fan. I’d rank him a solid fourth for keeping me out of the morgue. After Nightwing and all three Batgirls. Fifth if Red Hood’s having a good week.”

“Well, we all know who Van’s favorite is,” Emily said.

In unison, Teddy and Ron sing-songed, “2012 model Ro-obin!”

Tim looked incredibly confused. “—What?”

Teddy started to explain. “See, a little while ago there was this batarang and—“

“Wait.” Ron stopped him. “I have a photo somewhere.” He did out his phone.

“You took a photo?”

“Listen, that was A+ blackmail and I was _not_ about to let it go to waste.” Ron replied. He showed something on his phone to Tim. “See? He had a costume made. It’s clearly 2012 Robin because he has pants, but they’re green, not black or red.”

Tim was at a loss for words. “That,” He said finally, “Is horrifying. Probably the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Not as bad as that thing he said about orphans.”

“Oh my god I forgot about that.”

“Wait.” Tim looked back and forth between Ron and Teddy. “What did he say about orphans?”

“Uh, I think it mostly boiled down to ‘who cares about orphans, they can be poor, it’s a hard knock life,” Ron said.

“He’s paraphrasing,” Teddy clarified.

“If anything, what he actually said was _worse_.”

For a split second, Tim looked… actually kind of angry, but then his features settled back into confusion. “He knows Bruce is an orphan right? And that the Wayne Foundation is the biggest non-government supporter of orphanages in the country?”

“I don’t think he knows anything.” Ron shrugged. “He thought dressing up as Robin and waiting in an alley was a good idea. Even though he’s middle aged and selfish and two Robins have died on the job.”

“Three.”

“What?”

“Three Robins died on the job.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. That girl in early 2014.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know that.”

“People forget her.” Tim sounded irrationally sad for a person he’d probably never met. “She was only around for a few months, but she hates being forgotten.”

“Huh.” Ron said, for lack of a better reply. Nobody mentioned Tim’s incorrect verb tense, or maybe nobody but Emily noticed it.

“But anyway—“ Tim brought the mood back up. “—I might have to get revenge on Van on behalf of all my orphan brethren. Orphan and proud right?” He furrowed his brow. “Wait, no, that sounded wrong.”

“Relax, we get what you mean. Just, if you wouldn’t mind, leave us out of your revenge scheme please.” Teddy requested. “Van can be difficult when he thinks he’s been wronged. I mean, he’ll know it was us who told you, because we were the only ones there, but still.”

“It’s not like I’m going to do anything big, and I know how to be discrete, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a ninja.” Emily piped up.

Tim opened his mouth to respond, but got cut off when Van opened the door and sauntered into the room, followed by an irritated Jackie.

“So! My lovely hardworking employees, how goes your important work that I care about and respect you for?” Van’s voice warbled, like he wasn’t sure how to act.

Tim rolled his eyes. “There’s no need to pretend anything for my sake Van. Whatever you do normally clearly works fine, so it’s not like I’m going to freak out.”

“Right, well, uh. How are you enjoying your tour of our facilities?” Van’s nerves were in sharp contrast to everyone else’s casual demeanor. It was kind of funny actually.

“It’s been nice. You really lucked out with your employees; they’re all brilliant.”

Emily blushed, and she could see Ron ducking his head to hide a pleased smile.

“You seem to have quite the friendly relationship with them too,” Tim continued, “In fact they were just telling me about some of your hobbies and interests.”

Seeing where this was going, everyone made a show of focusing on their work.

Van narrowed his eyes a bit. “Oh? Like what?”

Tim smirked and leaned forward over the worktable. “Oh, you know. Skiing, guitar. Cosplay.”

Van hesitated. “—Cosplay?”

“I mean,” Tim drawled, “That must take guts right? I will admit, you’ve got good taste. 2012 Robin had a good costume. The green tights were just perfect. Of course, it wasn’t quite perfect on you. I mean, nothing can quite match the look of a teenager swinging around rooftops in tights.”

Van looked like he might spontaneously combust, but Tim wasn’t done. “And I mean, it was _probably_ a little bit insensitive, wearing an orphan’s costume after insulting orphans, but hey, what do _I_ know about orphans?”

The effect of the last statement was that of a bomb being dropped, or at the very least, the effect of rubble falling out of the rubble releaser. Van drained of all color and looked like he might be choking on air. Jackie looked positively gleeful. The others just stared.

Finally Van made a squeaking noise and took a step backwards., his eyes roaming the room for a defense. Finding no savior, he managed “Robin’s an orphan?” Like that was the only part of Tim’s dig that had sunk in.

Tim shrugged, trying to play it cool but unable to keep the grin off his face. “2012 Robin was, at least. He talked about it the time he saved me from Mr. Freeze.”

At this, Ron abandoned the pretense of working to jump into the conversation. “you met Robin?” That’s so cool! I mean, we’ve ‘met’—“ He did finger quotes. “—Batman but it wasn’t like we actually talked to him. I’ve always wanted to actually talk to a superhero.” It all came out in one breathless rush.

Tim turned his attention from a still-reeling Van to Ron. “The thing about being a very young, very kidnapable billionaire is that you meet a lot of superheroes. Robin was just one of many.” The way he said it was nonchalant, like everyone just casually meets tons of superheroes.

“Wait, wait wait wait wait.” Teddy stopped him. “Who, exactly, have you met?”

Tim thought for a moment. “Depends on what you mean by ‘met’ got saved-by-from-some-villain-in-a-hostage-situation is to big of a list. Actually talked to? Batman, one of the Robins, Nightwing, Superboy, and uh, Red Hood tried to kill me once.”

Wow, and Emily had thought it was cool that she met Crimson Fox.

“Didn’t you say you rank Red Hood fourth?” That was Wendy. “Why would you rank someone who tried to kill you so high?”

“It was years ago, and he sent me an apology note. So you know, no hard feelings.”

“You forgave him trying to kill you because he sent you a _note_.”

“It was a very nice note! It was thoughtful; it had a gift card for ice cream in it. Besides, I like to save my anger for people who actually deserve it, or at the very least people I can do something about. Like branch heads who sell company secrets to LexCorp, or—“ He directed his next statement toward Van. “—Relatives who dis orphans.”

Van, who appeared to have mostly recovered, went right back to being bright red.

Tim pressed his advantage. “On a _completely_ unrelated note, Van, I’m calling your father. I’d like to meet with him about the new Neon Knights branch soon, and I hear he’s in Charm right now. You won’t mind if he comes here? I’d rather not entertain in my hotel room. Thanks!” He said the last bit over his shoulder as he left. Emily could have sworn he winked at her.

Teddy broke the shocked silence he left in his wake. “You know, Van? You were right. That kid is _dangerous_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Tim says “Personal stuff” he means hero stuff. He avoided Emily because he doesn’t want to accidentally reveal anything incriminating. That kinda goes out the window next chapter but w/e.  
> I’m assuming the “two robins who died on the job” mentioned in the episode “Emily Dates a Henchman” are a reference to Jason and Damian, but it could really be anyone. Dick was presumed dead after he moved on to be Nightwing, and in Tim’s Robin run, it looks like the general public thinks there’s a new robin every time the costume changes… so by that logic, most DC civilians would actually think at least 7 robins died on the job. (Dick, Jason, Tim’s first costume, Stephanie, Tim returning after Stephanie died with the same costume, Tim’s red and black costume, and Damian. Plus, Dami has changed costumes a couple of times so there could be more) Tim mentioning that Steph “Hates” being forgotten was a slip-up because she does, but he isn’t supposed to know that, and also she’s supposed to be dead.


	4. Injuries are a Great Conversation Starter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most of the time, Tim can take care of himself. Sometimes, he needs help. and sleep. Sometimes, he needs sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medicine is not something I know anything about, and my only “research” was asking my friend, the amazing trashofalltrades, who is related to a doctor whether this was at all accurate. She said no, so I toned down some stuff. This may sound sadistic, but I wanted Tim to be in a lot of pain without any actual danger. This is about as close to medically accurate as I could get while still adhering to those parameters. Interestingly enough, pain is usually proportional to how serious an injury it is. Crazy right? Anyway, if any of you know actual stuff about medicine, I’m sorry. Tim’s injury was a lot more recent than he says, (As in, the night before instead of the week before) if that means anything. Plus, Emily is a bit of an unreliable narrator who doesn’t regularly see serious or semi-serious injuries, so she kinda exaggerates the amount of blood involved. Tim isn’t bleeding that much. She also suggests calling an ambulance multiple times, when in reality this is more of a “drive to the doctor” situation.

The story of Tim Drake absolutely roasting Van spread around the office like wildfire. Within the hour it had already passed into the realm of legend. Several employees had already congratulated Tim, and more than a dozen were just waiting to. Unfortunately for those people, Tim was nowhere to be found.

Emily didn’t particularly care if he pulled a Houdini, because she was finally getting some actual work done. She should have known that the universe would step in to make sure that didn’t happen.

She was just leaving the bathroom when someone said “Psst!” from over her left shoulder. She whirled to find a pair of eyes blinking out at her from the shadows of the janitor’s closet’s cracked door.

“Tim!?” She said, incredulous.

“Shh! I don’t want people to know I’m in here.”

Completely aware of how ridiculous it would look if someone saw her having a conversation with the Janitor’s closet, she leaned closer. “What are you doing in there? Wait, scratch that, how the hell did you get in there?”

“I, uh, picked the lock.”

“Why?”

He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a grunt of pain. “Okay, so, Emily, I’m going to need you to do something for me. I’m going to need you to bring the first-aid kit from the testing room.”

“Why? Wait. Oh my god, are you okay?”

“I’m-hrn-totally fine,” He said, though the rattling sound of his breath seemed more reliable than his words. “I just have one of those photo-sensitive headaches. You know the ones that make you feel like your head’s gonna split open?”

“First off, that’s called either a migraine or a hangover, and second, you’d be asking for aspirin, not the huge trauma first-aid kit from the testing room.”

There was a pause, then, “Please, Emily? I’ll explain later.”

Not knowing what else to do, she complied. “I’ll be right back.”

She speed-walked into the testing room, which was blessedly empty. She made a beeline for the first aid kit. The thing was the size of a briefcase and so heavy Emily had to use both hands. She had no idea what its purpose was, because it wasn’t like there was a doctor on-site who could use any of the more-advanced-than-a-regular-first-aid-kit-stuff that was in there.

She spent the entire way back to the janitor’s closet thought-chanting, “Please nobody look over here, please nobody look over here.” She breathed a huge sigh of relief when she reached the Janitor’s closet without incident.

She knocked on the doorframe “Tim? I’ve got it.” She whispered as quietly as she could manage.

No response.

“Tim? Mr. Drake?” her voice was as loud as she dared. Still nothing.

She nudged the door open a little wider with her foot. “Tim?” A little terrified of what she might find, she stepped inside.

“Dear Lord.” In the light from the open doorway, she could see him sitting propped up against the back wall, between a gallon of bleach and a mop bucket. His eyes were closed, and he had both hands wrapped around his left calf.

On instinct, she reached up and turned on the closet light. The action carried her the rest of the way into the closet, and the door swung shut behind her.

The light caused him to crack open one eye. “Oh, Hi Emily. How’s it going?”

He looked unnaturally pale, though Emily couldn’t tell if that was just his natural skin tone combined with the lighting. She noticed that he’d stripped off his socks and shoes, and rolled his left pant leg up to the knee. She could see blood between his fingers.

“Oh my god. You’re bleeding. Should I call an ambulance? I’m going to call an ambulance.”

She moved to re-open the door, but his voice stopped her. “No. Don’t. I’m fine. I just ripped my stitches. It’s shallow and barely bleeding. Can you bring that kit over here?”

Emily realized she was still holding the first aid kit, and she lugged it the few steps across the small closet to set it down next to him. She couldn’t take her eyes off his hands. She couldn’t stop imagining all sorts of horrific injuries underneath.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“It’s not that bad. He reached for the kit with one hand while leaving the other where it was. Half paralyzed, Emily handed it to him. He laid it flat and flicked it open, digging around for a moment before pulling out a pack of gauze. He opened it with his teeth and then placed it on the wound. Emily caught a glimpse of it when he moved his hand. Three stitches were still in, but she couldn’t tell how many had popped.

“Okay Emily, I know you’re freaking out, but I’m gonna need you to put pressure on it while I prep the needle, okay?” He held out a pair of gloves from the kit.

The words somehow penetrated the fog in her brain, and Emily dropped to her knees, pulled the gloves on, and reached out to press down on the gauze covered injury.

“Yeah, thanks.” She heard him rooting around in the first aid kit for something and then doing something else, but she didn’t take her eyes off his leg, like watching it would make it better.

He nudged her hands. “Take the gauze away, please.”

She did, scooting back a bit. She watched him carefully place a row of sutures in his own leg, (which was kind of creepy, especially since his expression didn’t change the entire time) and then dress the injury with clean bandages and disinfectant. (Which caused him to hiss through his teeth) He hadn’t been bleeding all that badly, she realized, he’d just been bleeding for a long time.

Then he used sanitary wipes to clean up. Within seconds, the only sign of blood was underneath his fingernails and on the gauze in her hands.

When he started rolling his pant leg back down over the bandages, she recovered her wits.

“What the fuck was that!? What—“

“Shhh.” He told her, with a finger to his lips. “Just, calm down okay?”

Emily did not calm down, but she did make an effort to be quieter. “What the fuck?”

“Seriously, it’s fine. This is an old injury. There was this whole situation last week, and I just got a little slashed.”

There were a lot of questions running through Emily’s brain, but the one her mouth went with was: “Why wasn’t that on the news?”

He groaned. “Every time one of us gets hurt, WE stock prices take a hit. So we kept this one quiet. That’s why I couldn’t let you call an ambulance.”

“Stock prices!? You sewed yourself up in a janitor’s closet for STOCK PRICES!?”

“It’s fine. I know how. I took a seminar and I’ve done it before.”

“You’ve done this BEFORE!?” She couldn’t quite keep the hysteria out of her voice.

“Well, not this _exact_ thing, no.” Her hysteria was humorous to him, for some reason. He added, “Usually I get the supplies myself, but by the time I realized I’d popped my stitches, the chances of someone noticing me bleeding-slash-limping across the office was too high.”

“Wait—“ The question dawned on her. “How long were you in here before you talked to me?”

“I dunno, about twenty minutes?” He pulled a bottle of ibuprofen out of his pocket and popped a couple of pills.

“Twenty- you could have passed out during that time!”

“Nah, it wasn’t nearly that bad. I was just waiting for someone trustworthy to pass by. I would have taken Ron or Teddy or Jackie, but I was hoping for you. You’re calm under pressure.”

“I am not calm!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t immediately scream when you found your boss bleeding in the closet, which is all I can really ask.”

“You shouldn’t even ask that! I should go call an ambulance! You’re clearly in a lot of pain.”

“Please don’t. I’m really fine. I mean, I’ve been walking around on it all day.”

“You were _limping_ around on it all day. And that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!”

“The limp was actually from when I twisted my ankle at the airport, and the pain is actually from my bruised ribs, not my leg. I’ll be able to get up in a moment.” True to his word, he started pulling his sock on.

“Bruised ribs!? You have bruised ribs too!?”

“That’s what you got out of that? I’m _fine_.” He shifted a bit, preparing to stand.

“You shouldn’t—“

“Thank you for your help Emily, but I can handle it. I have to handle it.”

“Or, you could just go to the hospital.” She tried.

He shook his head. “No, I have to speak with Van’s father, and he’d see me bailing out as a sign of weakness.”

“You’ve been _stabbed_!”

“Slashed lightly! I’ve just got to get through this meeting, the I promise I’ll go back to my hotel room to rest.”

“Wait. Why is this meeting so important?”

“Well, first, I can’t open a Neon Knights branch in Opal City without Vanderveer’s approval, and second, I have to be in top form, because he hates me.”

“He… hates you?” To Emily, Tim seemed like a very hard-to-hate person. Unless he’d dragged Van’s dad into a closet to stitch up a stab wound at some previous meeting, Emily couldn’t come up with a reason why Vanderveer might hate him.

“Mm-hm. See, up until a couple years ago, Bruce had no heirs. Dick was a ward, which would mean that Van’s branch of the Wayne family stood to inherit a significant portion of Bruce’s wealth. Then he adopted Jason and Dick officially, but neither of them showed any interest in the business, so the extended family would still get to control that. And then Jason died of course, so that meant they’d only have to deal with Dick, who has no interest in being anything other than a cop. Cassandra came along, but she doesn’t have any interest either. But then there’s me. I’m both alive and showing interest in the company.” (Understatement, Emily thought) “And adding insult to injury, I’m not a Wayne. With Damian set to inherit they’d learn to live with it because at least then the company would be sure to stay in the family. Me, on the other hand? I’ll always be an outsider to them.”

“But Bruce adopted you. You even hyphenated your name.”

“Yeah, well, that’ll never be enough for some people.”

“We’re not just talking about Van’s dad here anymore, are we?”

“No,” Tim admitted, “I guess not.”

“You gonna share?”

“Probably not.” He made an effort to sound chipper.

"I mean, if you were ever looking for someone to confide your secrets in, the person sitting in a closet with you having just watched you sew up your own leg might be a good choice.” So that was probably prying, but she felt like she deserved some answers.

He gave her a bemused expression. “It’s not that much of a secret, but if you must know, my little brother Damian kinda hates me. Not so much anymore, we’ve made a lot of progress, but he thought I didn’t deserve to be part of the family because I’m not Bruce’s blood son. He tried to, uh, ‘get rid of’ me a couple of times.”

Yikes. “And by ‘get rid of’ you mean…”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I still have scars.”

Damn. She eyed him, wondering why he was being so candid. “There’s more to it than that,” She accused.

“Probably.”

“Going to tell me the rest?”

“’The rest’ is between me, my therapist, and the therapist my therapist hired to recover from giving me therapy.” He stood up, shifting his weight from side to side, clearly testing to make sure his stitches would hold. Satisfied, he crossed to the door, opened it, and peeked out. “Coast is clear.” He waved her forward. “It’ll be better if we stagger our departure.”

“Um, what about—“ She pointed at the first-aid kit.

“I’ll put it back. Now you go. Hurry.” She stepped out the door and heard it click shut behind her. Confused, she walked back to her desk, hoping to return to work.

Her peace didn’t last long, however, because Vanderveer arrived via helicopter. It struck her as even more ostentatious now than it did the first time, because she’d seen the style someone much higher up in the company liked to arrive in. Tim Drake didn’t flaunt his wealth, and he exuded just as much authority arriving in a rental car as he would have arriving in a helicopter. In fact, after having spent time with Tim, Vanderveer seemed much less impressive. He needed his titles and fancy suits to control the room, whereas she was pretty sure Tim could have shown up to work in Van’s Robin cosplay and still seemed like an authority figure. After all, he told her not to call an ambulance for his leg, and she listened, completely against her better judgment.

The slap of papers against her desk broke her out of her musing.

“Hey, Earth to Emily,” Jackie said, “We got corporate approval for the thermal field generator.”

“The Thermashield? Finally. It’s been pending for weeks.”

“I know. You’ve been complaining about it for nearly as long.” Jackie walked away.

Emily glanced at the packet. It looked like the delay was in the “possible supervillain applications” category. The Thermashield was classified B3: non-weaponized but weaponizable, medium-level damage possible. Anything rated B2 or higher required special approval. She flipped through the packet to see who had signed the waiver.

She found the waiver form about halfway through the absurdly thick packet. In the half-page space for “Explanation” only one sentence was written: “Possible benefits and safety improvements from this technology outweigh possible dangers.” At the bottom of the page was signed what looked like “Bme Wgna.” wait no, she squinted at it “Bruce Wayne.”

Wow. Usually Wayne security proposals got accepted or rejected by some lackey at corporate. That it went all the way up to Bruce Wayne himself was impressive. It meant that either Mr. Wayne had taken a personal interest in the project, or corporate had been so uncertain of it that they felt the need to go to the top.

Emily realized she was drifting again and pulled herself back to reality, getting up to tell the others the good news.

She spent the rest of the afternoon supervising secondary tests on the Thermashield. They seemed confident that designs could be finalized by the end of the week.

Tim wandered in a bit before they finished. “Is that the thermal field generator?” The one you mentioned earlier?” he looked at Teddy.

“Mm-hm. We got approval from corporate, so we’re finalizing design specs before we send it off to manufacturing.”

Tim examined the contraption. It basically looked like a big empty cube constructed out of pipes, but when it turned on a thermal-insulated force field generated on each plane. The idea was that it got installed in the walls of a designated shelter room and then turned on in the event of an attack by an ice-themed villain. Wayne security had possible buyers lined up in Gotham, Central, and Keystone. It was Teddy’s brainchild (the logical next step up from his gloves) and he was extremely proud.

“What temperature specs did you decide on?” Tim asked, prompting Teddy to begin a long-winded explanation that everyone else tuned out.

When he was finished, Tim put on a look of being suitably impressed, but also a bit concerned. “Aren’t you worried about this technology getting weaponized?”

“Well, we have a patent pending, and it’s not on the market yet. So unless someone comes in here and steals our prototypes and designs, that’ll be marketing and sales’ problem.”

“Obviously, we don’t want it weaponized,” Ron explained, “but corporate approved finalizing the product, so they get to deal with making sure that doesn’t happen.”

Tim nodded like that made sense, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Guessing what it was, Emily asked, “Did your meeting with Vanderveer go well?”

He smiled at her. “Better than could be expected. He agreed to expand the Neon Knights program. Of course, I had to tell him how great a tax write-off it would be first, but—“ He shrugged. “—At least he won’t be fighting me like that last time I tried to expand the charities.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah, it is. It’s always nice when I get to use the absurd amount of wealth at my disposal to actually help people.”

Emily saw her opportunity to say what she’d been waiting to say ever sense he walked in. “Speaking of helping people… didn’t you say you were going to help yourself by going back to your hotel and resting?” It was a bad segue she knew, but she still got her point across.

Or maybe not. Tim looked at her quizzically like he had no idea what she was talking about.

“You know?” she prompted, “like you mentioned earlier?”

He looked like it might be dawning on him slowly. For a guy who was supposed to be a genius he could be pretty dense.

“Ooooh. Oh. Yeah. Earlier. I was just thinking I could stay and watch your tests on the Thermashield. Keep up with what’s new in the company, you know?”

She looked very pointedly at his leg, and then at his bruised ribs. At least, what she hoped were his bruised ribs. She didn’t actually know what side they were on.

He avoided her eyes. “I mean, those painkillers I took for that _headache_ I had earlier kicked in, and I’m really feeing fine…”

“Tim. Go. Rest.” Emily was surprised how much she sounded like her mother. Oh god, she just used the mom tone on her boss. Her teenaged boss, but still.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice her breach in workplace etiquette. Instead, he said, “Maybe Ron and Teddy want me to stay?” He looked to them for help.

“Sorry man, Emily’s right, you look dead on your feet. Plus, these test are really boring anyway.” Teddy told him.

Tim seemed to consider if putting up a bigger fight was worth it. Evidently not, because he relaxed. “I suppose a little catnap couldn’t hurt. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” Emily corrected, “and you’ll actually get some sleep tonight.” She realized she’d put her hands on her hips, and quickly dropped them.

Tim gave her a cheeky smile. “Yes ma’am. Would you like me to clean my room while I’m at it?”

Ron and Teddy snickered, and somewhere behind her Wendy snorted. Not letting the ridiculousness of the situation get to her, Emily replied, “There’s nothing that can’t wait. Go. Sleep.”

“I guess I have no choice,” he said, already heading for the door. “See you guys tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Though Emily watched to make sure Tim didn’t sneak back into the office, it appeared that he’d kept his word. Enough that by the time Emily got home she felt pretty good about someone actually listening to her for once.

She ate leftovers and watched the news in peace. It was uplifting today, apparently Red Robin was in town, and he had assisted Crimson Fox in stopping Jack-O-Lantern before there could be any casualties.

Before she knew it, she was drifting off on her couch. Her last thought was that she should probably move to her bed so her back wouldn’t hurt in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting another chapter ahead of schedule because I'm done with debate for the season and also I got some really nice comments and they made me want to post. i'm predictable that way. Thank you nice commenters! :D
> 
> In this timeline, Dick moved back to a rebuilding Blüdhaven and rejoined the police force (because the city reaaaallly needed cops) after Bruce came back, mostly because I think Officer Grayson is the best version of Dick.
> 
> Also, plot, is that you? Never thought I’d see you here.


	5. Meet the Fiancé

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else arrives at the office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because theres no new episode today doesn't mean I'm not going to post! And I actually finished this chapter in time woo!
> 
> and we gain a new cast member in this chapter! Who could it be? Definitely not the person I added to the tags, no way, that would be crazy.
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who commented!

Emily barely found the strength to drag herself to work the Thursday morning. She hurt all over. This is what she gets for falling asleep on the couch.

She plopped down at her seat in her office with a groan and thumped her head down onto her keyboard. She might have stayed like that forever if it weren’t for Jackie.

“Rise and shine sleeping beauty.” Emily heard the thwap of papers hitting her desk. “You’ve got paperwork to do.”

Emily peaked her forehead off the keyboard to blink at her. She tried to say “What for?” but it came out more like “Whug fu?”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Security waivers, the proposal for the new backpack, etcetera. It’s going to take a while, so you might want to get started.”

Emily glared at the packet until long after Jackie had left, as if daring it to make the first move.

When it didn’t, she reached over and pulled the first sheet off the top of the stack. The words swam off the page in front of her eyes. Se got about halfway through filling it out before thumping her head down onto it with a drawn out sigh/groan. It was blessedly cool on the side of her face, and she wandered if she could just fall asleep.

“Rough night?”

To Emily’s credit, she didn’t scream or fall out of her chair. To… not Emily’s credit, she did swear rather loudly and whip her head up. This was unfortunate, because it revealed that the paper had stuck to the side of her face.

Tim looked _immensely_ amused. “Now who looks dead?”

Emily glared, and the action caused the paper to unstick from her face and float down onto the desk. “Still you.” She said. Ok, that might not have been fair. He did look a lot less dead. Only like, 35% dead.

He laughed. “You can join the zombie club with me. Everything is easier when you’re dead inside.”

That… okay that was a troubling thing to hear a teenager say, but Emily was in too much pain to deal with it right now. She considered just putting her head back on her desk until he went away, but she decided that would be rude.

“What gives you the right to be so chipper?”

“You did, remember? You told me to go sleep so I slept.”

She wanted to be angry about that, but she couldn’t seem to find a legitimate reason to be. Somewhere in her brain she remembered she was supposed to be the cheery one. The message did not make it to her face, however, because she continued to glare.

“You need coffee,” He decided, “I’ll go get you some coffee.”

He left, and she turned to glaring at her paperwork until he returned a moment later, holding a paper cup.

She took it, but hesitated before taking a sip. “You didn’t put any of that gross energy drink stuff in here, right?”

“Of course not. Two creams and a sugar, right?”

She had no idea how he knew the way she took her coffee, but she nodded that affirmative. She took some careful sips, and after a moment she felt halfway human again.

“Thanks.”

“It’s no problem. I just—“ His phone buzzing in his pocket cut him off. He pulled it out. “Just a sec, it’s my fiancé.” He turned away. “Hi Conner! Something up?” He paused, listening. “Wait, What?” He turned to face the elevator for some reason.

The doors opened and Emily could hear the person inside saying, “—I said, I’m in the elevator heading up to where you are.”

Tim put his phone down and cracked a huge smile. “Conner! What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d surprise my fiancé!” He smiled and his whole face lit up. He was tall and built like a lumberjack, though that could have just been that he was wearing flannel and jeans. He crossed from the elevator to Emily’s desk and dipped Tim into a theatrical kiss.

Tim broke away. “I was going to see you Saturday, silly!”

Conner shrugged. “Maybe I couldn’t wait.”

Tim hugged him. Emily heard a muffled “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“Who’s more ridiculous, the ridiculous guy, or the guy who marries him?”

“We’re not hitched yet. I can still back out.” Tim threatened.

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

Tim ended the hug. “Where are my manners? Conner, this is Emily Locke, she’s head of R&D here. Emily, this is Conner Kent, my fiancé.”

Conner gave her a warm smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Uh, you too.”

Tim turned back to his fiancé. “We should probably let Emily get back to work, and I should probably introduce you to Van.” He scanned the office. “I think he’s- Conner put me down!”

About halfway through Tim’s statement, Conner had scooped him up bridal-style. “What?” He said innocently. “You said you wanted to introduce me to people.”

“I can walk just fine, thank you.” It would have sounded irritated if Tim’s smile wasn’t showing through under his scowl.

“Yeah, but now you don’t have to. Now, which way?”

“Put me down! You’re causing a scene!”

They were indeed causing a scene, but that wasn’t hard to do in a room full of coffee-zombies struggling through paperwork.

“Well it seems to me like you’re the one causing a scene, so why don’t you point the direction so these nice people can get back to work?”

Tim mumbled something, and Conner laughed. They headed off towards Van’s office, Tim trying and failing to look unhappy.

 

* * *

 

Some small miracle allowed Emily to finish her paperwork before noon. She dumped her finished work on Jackie’s desk (Earing her a glare) and went working for her wayward co-workers. She found them all standing around the empty coffee pot, laughing about something. It didn’t take her long to figure out what.

“And then he says ‘I thought this was a dance party!’”

Everyone was clustered around Conner (who had just finished telling a hilarious story-judging by the laughter) and Tim. (who must have been the subject of the story-judging by the petulant look on his face)

She joined the circle in time for her to hear Tim say, “I can tell plenty stories about you too. That time with the calamari?”

Conner held up his hands in good-humored surrender. “I get the message. Shutting up now.”

Tim smiled, and how happy he looked struck Emily like a sledgehammer. He just lit up in a way he hadn’t before. He actually looked 100% alive. She told herself she wasn’t envious, but she kind of was. Her attempts at dating lately had turned out dismal. She just… it wasn’t like she was in a rush to get married or anything, but she wished she had someone like that. Someone who could make her smile just by being around them.

Tim was talking again. “These guys were going to show me more tests on their thermal field generator. You want to come?”

Conner glanced at Teddy “Nah, I wouldn’t understand it anyway. I’m going to go try to convince your cousin _not_ to come to our wedding.”

Tim stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. It was disgustingly sweet. “Have fun trying babe. He’ll take any excuse to go to Gotham and schmooze.”

 

* * *

 

They finished the next round of testing on the Thermashield around one, just as Wendy’s stomach started to rumble. After a quick lunch Emily went to retrieve some forms from Jackie, and found her chatting with Conner. Well, Jackie was chatting, or rather, flirting. Conner just looked a bit uncomfortable.

“Your fiancé’s in the testing room, if you were looking for him.” She said, taking what felt like a whole ream of paper from Jackie.

“Oh. Thanks.” He set off walking, then stopped. “Which way was that again?”

She smiled. “I’m going there now, I’ll show you. Bye Jackie!”

They left Jackie looking distinctly disappointed at her desk.

Conner breathed a sigh of relief “I don’t mind getting flirted with, but wow, she is tenacious.”

Emily laughed. “That she is.”

They arrived at the testing room. Emily was about to lead the way in when he stopped her.

“Hey Emily, wait.”

She paused. “Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say, Tim told me about what happened yesterday, and—“ He hesitated. “He can be stupidly self-destructive sometimes. I just want to thank you for taking care of him.”

“I didn’t really do much.” She said honestly. “He did his own stitches.”

“Still. I like when I know there’s people around to watch his back, you know? I worry a little less then. So thank you, Emily.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” She opened the door, wondering if Tim was aware how much he worried his fiancé.

They walked into a scene of total chaos.

Ron was holding the arm of a mannequin, which was on fire. He was flailing it around, raining droplets of molten, burning plastic down on everyone. The rest of the mannequin stood nearby, also on fire. Teddy was trying to hit the flaming arm with the fire extinguisher, while Wendy ran around stomping out the little fires all over the floor. All three of them were screaming.

Tim stood off to the side, surveying the carnage with an amused expression. Seeing Conner and Emily enter, he waved and yelled over the din. “Hey you guys! How’s it going?”

That was enough of a distraction to slow Ron down, and gave Teddy enough time to hit the arm with the fire extinguisher.

Everyone stood around, breathing hard. The rest of the mannequin was still on fire.

“Do I even want to know?” Emily asked.

Teddy pointed at Ron. “Ron left the test mannequin to close to the Thermashield.” He turned to put the rest of the dummy out with the fire extinguisher.

That only explained about a quarter of the scene in front of her, but she dropped it.

“You know,” Conner said, “For some reason this is giving me a weird sense of déjà vu.”

Tim looked at him. “You’re thinking of Bart’s last birthday party.”

Conner snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”

“Okay,” Ron dropped the still smoking mannequin arm. “Now you _have_ to tell that story.”

“I think that’s a case of ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’”

Emily got the conversation back on track. “So how are the tests going?”

“They were going fine before Ron fucked everything up.” Wendy said.

“Wendy!”

“What?”

“We talked about swearing in the workplace! There are young innocent ears here.”

“Hey! I’m nineteen, not twelve!” Tim said, indignant.

Conner just laughed. “And he’s certainly not innocent.”

Everyone looked at him for a moment, and he slowly turned red. “That’s not what I meant. Get your minds out of the gutter.”

Everyone laughed.

“So,” Tim asked. Were you successful in convincing Van not to come to our wedding?”

“Unfortunately no. We’ll have to deal with him there.”

Tim rubbed his chin. “I know a guy who does kidnappings. Very professional.”

“Is this, by any chance, the guy who kidnapped you a month ago?”

“God no. Not him. Horrible service, I gave him a one star rating on Criminal Yelp. No, I’m talking about that guy from September.”

“Him? Oh yeah, he was good.”

Tim looked to be seriously considering it. “Unfortunately, Superboy got a little overzealous and broke his jaw the last time he kidnaped a Wayne, so he probably won’t want to do it again.”

“Yeah, and he totally squealed on who hired him, so that’s probably not good. Plus, I think he’s still in prison.”

“So kidnapping is out.”

“We could sic your little brother on him.”

“Nobody deserves Damian, not even Van.”

“Cass then, or Stephanie.”

“Yeah that could work. We’d have to—“

Teddy cleared his throat. “Ahem, we’re about to run another test, and this one is whether it explodes after a power surge, so everyone should move behind the blast wall.”

Everyone ducked behind the blast wall while Teddy hit the button. Luckily the Thermashield did not blow up, and everyone climbed back out.

Ron whooped. “This design is a go! We can finalize blueprints tomorrow.”

Conner and Tim shared a meaningful look. “That’s great!” Tim said. “Good luck with that. We should probably head out.” Tim was already backing towards the door.

“Yeah, bye guys! See you later!”

They left without waiting for a response. “Emily barely managed to shout “Bye!” at the door as it closed.

“That was… abrupt.” Teddy said.

“They’re probably going to go make out somewhere.”

“Wendy!”

“What? You _know_ it’s true.”

“Maybe.” Emily had a feeling that wasn’t it.

The day ended without anyone seeing Tim or Conner again, though everyone except Emily thought that was normal. When she asked Jackie about it, she just commented, “Young love. It’s so nice before it goes sour.” Emily told her that was overly cynical, and put the matter out of her mind.

At five, she rode the bus home like normal, watched the news (Superboy was in town, cool) Ate, and then remembered to actually fall asleep in her bed.

 

* * *

 

Emily woke up Friday morning actually feeling refreshed. She went to work with a hop in her step.

The morning went well. Ron, Wendy, and Teddy worked on getting the Thermashield finished. Van actually showed up to work on time for once. Tim showed up around ten, saying he’d left a still-sleeping Conner at his hotel room. He seemed happy, and Wendy asked very pointedly if that was because of “a good night’s sleep, or lack thereof?” Tim declined to comment.

All in all, before lunch, Friday was great. In hindsight, Emily should have known it couldn’t last.

 

* * *

 

Emily was just bringing the last of the Thermashield paperwork to Jackie when the elevator opened.

Emily glanced over at it, expecting one of her coworkers or maybe one of the guys from WayneEx here to bother them.

That was not what she saw.

Instead, the doors opened on half a dozen large men in combat gear and masks, holding guns.

Before her brain could process that information one of them rolled something out of the elevator. It was only after the thing started releasing a huge plume of smoke that her brain realized what was happening.

A loud voice came out of the smoke. “EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO LIVE, GET ON THE FLOOR.”

She heard the sound of the stairwell doors bursting open, followed by the sound of more boots tromping across the floor.

Realizing she was still frozen in place, Emily dropped to her knees beside Jackie.

The smoke started to clear, and through it Emily could see everyone either kneeling or lying down on the floor. Gunmen fanned out through the room. One of them was barking orders.

She saw them enter the private offices, and drag everyone into the main room one by one, lining them up against the wall.

She saw someone dragging Teddy, Ron, Wendy and Tim out of the testing room.

She was vaguely aware of sounds happening, but she couldn’t seem to process them.

That is, she couldn’t process them until a sharp jab to the back of her head made the whole scene shed its dreamlike quality.

“I said—“ The man behind her growled “—Phones. Pass ‘em up. No sudden moves.”

Emily retrieved her phone from her pocket, and the man snatched it, before moving on to Jackie.

Elsewhere, she could hear another gunman on the radio. It sounded like other groups sounding off. “Floor one secure. Floor two secure.” Etc. Everything was precise, and Emily realized with a slowly dawning sort of horror that this wasn’t a bunch of third rate goons like last time. This raid was being executed with military precision.

And the worst thing was, she had no idea why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone conveniently forgot that Wendy swore in front to Tim earlier. Mostly because I conveniently forgot Wendy swore in front of Tim earlier, and then I didn’t want to take the scene out.
> 
> I'm sorry I ended up bringing ships into this. I promised myself i wouldn't and then I did. I cannot resist the call of the shipping. This is about as prominent as it's gonna get tho, so i'm leaning the fic as gen b/c the shipping isn't a big part of it.
> 
> Aaaaaand Plot returns with a vengeance. Next chapter is action, then we'll have a wind down chapter and maybe an epilogue. Woo! heading for the finish!


	6. New Friends and Old Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the wrong kind of blast from the past. Or rather, smoke grenade from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next were supposed to be one chapter, but it ended up being a crazy-long Franken-chapter with half a dozen weird tonal shifts, so I split it in half. Thanks to trashofalltrades for beta-ing!

Emily knelt on the uncomfortable office carpet trying to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

The gunmen were moving people from where they were scattered on the floor to up against the wall.

Emily found herself wedged between Jackie and, of all people, Tim, who looked rather nonplussed at having an assault rifle held to his head.

Once everyone was along the wall the guy Emily took to be the leader of the gunmen started speaking. “First off, you’re all going to stay nice and quiet. Nobody causes any trouble, nobody gets hurt. Someone causes trouble, well—“ He leveled his gun at Alex-from-accounting’s face. “Then someone has a very bad day. Am I clear?”

No one moved.

“I _said_ , AM I CLEAR?”

Emily nodded vigorously, and she could see most of the rest of the line doing the same.

“Good. Now everyone’s going to be quiet while we wait for the boss.”  
The room lapsed into relative silence, and if Emily hadn’t known how professional these guys were before, she would now. They were eerily silent. Composed.

Then, a hiccupping sob broke the quiet. Emily slowly turned her head down the line past Jackie to see Susan, poor Susan, with her hands over her mouth, tears running down her face, trying desperately to keep quiet.

Too late. One of the guys noticed. With each step he took toward Susan, she seemed to lose it a little more.

He held his gun up to her head and growled “Shut up.”

Susan continued to sob.

“I SAID SHUT UP!” He pressed his gun into her forehead.

She let out a strangled shriek.

Just before he was about to do something, Emily heard a voice on her other side shout “Hey!”

Emily whipped her head around to see Tim glaring at the guy.

Leaving Susan to her sobs, the guy stepped slowly down the line. He stopped in front of Tim. “You got a problem?”

And Tim, in by far the stupidest show of bravery Emily had ever seen, said “Maybe I do.”

Emily couldn’t see the guy’s eyes under the mask but they were narrowed. He poked his gun into Tim’s face. “And what,” His voiced dropped to an even lower octave. “Might this problem be?”

Tim glared at him, somehow completely unafraid. “You have a hostage situation here, and hostages cry. You can’t shoot one of them for crying.”

“You an expert on hostage situations, smart guy?”

“I have almost certainly been part of more hostage situations than you.”

“Huh.” The guy leaned forward, looming over Tim, and, by extension, Emily and Poor Ron on Tim’s other side. “Then I’m sure you know, while I can’t shoot a hostage for crying, I can certainly shoot one for mouthing off.”

Tim opened his mouth, surely to make a sarcastic remark that would get them all killed, but Emily kicked him lightly. He hissed, and she realized she’d hit his injured leg. Whoops. In any case, it got him to shut up, and the guy growled, “Thought so” and stepped back.

Everything went quiet for a few minutes, and Susan got a handle on her sobbing.

After more than fifteen minutes of waiting, one of the gunmen went up to the leader-guy and asked, “Where’s the boss?” His voice sounded familiar.

“He’ll be here when he needs to be.”

“Yeah, but he was supposed to be here five minutes ago.”

Wait. Emily recognized the voice now. “Dan?” she breathed, unable to stop herself.

He walked over, pushed up his goggles and crouched down. “Actually, it’s Reggie. How’s it going, Emily? Long time no see.” He smiled in a way that seemed more like he was trying to threaten to bite her than show his happiness.

“Hey! No names you idiot!”

Reggie looked over his shoulder. “She recognized me anyway. Relax.”

“The boss won’t like it.” The other guy threatened.

“Yeah, well, I’m the only reason the boss knows about this job, so he can deal.” He turned back to Emily. “Where was I? Oh yeah, catching up. I’m doing fine. As you can see—“ he gestured to the other gunmen. “—I’m moving up in the world. No longer a Riddler henchman.” He smiled. “I like my new boss better. He _doesn’t_ speak in riddles. Enough about me. How ‘bout you?”

Emily fumed silently. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but considering he was holding a gun, that was probably a bad idea.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately) Tim did it for her. “Fuck off, man. Leave her alone.”

Reggie turned to Tim. “The fuck are you, kid?” He looked at Jackie on Emily’s other side. “Was it bring your child to work day?”

“How old do you think I am?” Jackie said, indignant, miraculously maintaining her sarcasm.

Reggie shook his head. “Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. I wouldn’t speak to me that way. Not only am I the man with the gun, but I’m moving up in the world. You’ll want to treat me with respect.”

Tim snorted.

Reggie looked at him, then back at Emily. Then he stood up, shifted over, and kicked Tim savagely in the ribs.

Tim yelped and went white s a sheet. He looked like he was struggling to breathe. Emily remembered with horror that his ribs were already bruised.

Reggie leaned back over to her. “The next kick is for you, Emily. _Robin_ isn’t here to save you this time.”

He straightened up, pulled his mask back down, and walked away, leaving Emily almost as breathless as Tim. Almost. He appeared to be breathing again, but it was shallow, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

Risking the wrath of the guards, she leaned over and whispered, “You ok?”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he managed to say “Nothing a few painkillers won’t fix. I don’t think anything’s broken.” He paused, then: “I’ve had worse.”

That wasn’t much of a comfort. “That was really stupid, you know.”

“What? Snorting at his ridiculous D-grade villain spiel?”

“He would have left you alone if you hadn’t.”

“Yeah—“ He cracked one eye open to look at her. “—But he wouldn’t have left _you_ alone.”

“What?”

“I know when a guy is geared up to hurt someone. It’s in the way he smiles. You or me, he wasn’t going to leave without at least one good hit.”

“Better me than you! At least I don’t have bruised ribs!”

Tim just shrugged. “There’s no knowing if he would have let you off with just one kick though.”

“Hey! You over there! Be quiet!”

Emily and Tim shut up.

The next few minutes passed in silence punctuated only by Tim’s occasionally labored breathing.

Eventually the leader’s radio crackled to life. “Boss is on his way up.”

“Roger that.”

Everyone waited with baited breath. Even Tim had his breathing back under control.

After what felt like an eternity the elevator door opened. Emily craned her neck to see who it was. Mr. Freeze? Catwoman? Deathstroke? Someone huge and intimidating, surely.

But instead the elevator’s occupant defied her expectations. He was young, maybe about Tim’s age. White, with blue eyes and brown hair cropped to a military buzz. He was large, but not overly so.

In spite of her better judgment, Emily felt herself relax. He just wasn’t as intimidating as the heavy-hitter costumed villain she imagined.

At her side, Tim had the exact opposite reaction. He tensed visibly and sucked in a breath of air that had nothing to do with his ribs.

She glanced at him, alarmed. He was biting his lip, eyes roving the room. Looking for what, she didn’t know.

She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but shut it when “The Boss” started to talk.

“Everything under control, I trust?” His voice was clipped, controlled.

“Yes boss.” Leader-guy answered, snapping to attention.

“Any problems?”

“Well, Reggie revealed his name to the hostages.”

The boss snapped his head around to look at Reggie. “No names, Idiot. If you weren’t the reason we have this job, I’d have you killed for insubordination.”

Reggie shuffled his feet. “Sorry Boss.”

“You’d better be. I was hoping to get out of here unrecognized.” He scanned the line of the hostages along the wall. “Now we may need to dispose of the hostages along with the evidence.”

A chill went down Emily’s spine. Kill. He meant kill. Oh god. Oh god he meant kill.

She could hear Susan resume sobbing down the line. The boss talked over her. “You checked the package?”

“Yeah boss, but none of us know how to work it.”

“No matter, I’ll handle it myself. It looks finished, at least?”

Reggie looked affronted. “My intel was good! You heard it yourself; they said they were done!”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust a listening device placed by an imbecile. Why the Riddler kept you around so long is beyond me.”

Reggie gulped. “Yes boss.”

He turned back to the guy Emily assumed to be his second in command. “The other floors?”

“Secured, boss.”

“good. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Keep the hostages quiet.” He entered the testing room.

The second he was gone Tim leaned over to Emily. “We need help.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

Tim shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. That’s Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong, and he is very dangerous.”

“Ulys— who?”

“Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong, AKA the General. One of Gotham’s most dangerous criminals.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Do you remember the Anarky bombing spree two years ago?”

“That was him!?” she hissed.

“See, like I said. He’s dangerous. We need help.”

“It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it!”

“Maybe.” He frowned, thinking. “There’s a chance— If I had my phone. But they took me by surprise.” He thought for a moment longer. “Superboy’s in Charm right now, but they’d shoot anyone who screams.”

“so, what do we do?” She wasn’t sure why she expected him to be the one to come up with a plan, but she did.

He stayed silent for a moment, glancing at the testing room door. “Nothing for it.” He whispered, more to himself than to her.

“What?’

Just then, the testing room door opened and Armstrong came out.

“Looks good.” He pointed at two of the gunmen. “You! Get in there—“ He pointed back with his thumb. “And pack it up. Be careful with it, and remember to get all the blueprints. The technology is useless if we can’t replicate it. And bring the ‘clean up’ device with you.”

The two men left, carrying a large plastic storage box between them.

Tim whispered nudged Emily. “When I signal you, I’m going to need a distraction.”

“Wait, what?”

Before she could do anything, Tim shifted so he was a little taller against the wall. “Hey! Ulysses!” He yelled.

Armstrong whipped his head around and stomped over “Who the hell are you?”

Tim smiled. “How rude. I recognize the famous Anarky, but you don’t recognize me.”

“You— shut the fuck up.”

“Well,” Tim seemed determined to dig himself into the deepest hole possible. “I guess you would prefer ‘the General’ huh. You weren’t a great Anarky.”

“Shut. Up.” Armstrong warned, voice low and dangerous. “I was an _effective_ Anarky.”

“Lonnie Machin says differently. Face it Armstrong. You failed and you were too scared of _Robin_ to show your face for _two years_.”

Armstrong growled, and Emily could tell Tim had pushed him over the edge. “Reggie. Here’s your chance to get back in my good graces.” He spoke up to all the hostages. “This guy has volunteered to be an example to the rest of you.”

Reggie walked over and seized Tim by the front of his shirt. He dragged him away from the wall.

“What’s your name?” Armstrong asked.

Tim didn’t answer.

“I _said_ , what’s your name!?”

Tim lolled his head around to make eye contact with Emily. He mouthed “now.”

Startled, Emily remembered her part of the plan. She threw her head back and started fake sobbing as loud as she could.

Everyone looked at Emily for a second, and that was enough time for Tim to make his move. He did something Emily couldn’t see that caused Reggie to yell and drop him. On his way down, he lashed out and grabbed something off Reggie’s belt. He hit the floor and dropped into a crouch.

Reggie lunged for him, but Tim shoulder rolled out of reach. He triggered whatever he was holding, and Emily realized it was another smoke canister. Smoke obscured half the room in seconds.

The men she could still see raised their guns, but hesitated to fire with such low visibility, lest they hit one of their own. Instead they fanned out through the smoke.

Emily scanned the room, looking for any indication of Tim’s plan, but she saw nothing other than a few silhouettes of gunmen.

There were a few thumps, then a groan, then a crack. And Emily’s blood ran cold.

The smoke started to clear up. First, Emily could see a few of the gunmen. They’d gone still. She hated to think why.

It was a moment longer before she could really see.

Tim knelt on the floor in the middle of the office, hands on his head, His phone, recovered in the confusion from wherever it had been, sat face down on the floor in front of him. But the most distressing part of the scene was the assault rifle Reggie had pressed into the back of his head.

Emily made a strangled sound. Oh god. She thought. I’ve never seen anyone get shot before.

It was a strange thought to have, but that was just how Emily’s brain worked sometimes.

Reggie yelled something incoherent, and that was when Emily realized that his mask was broken and his face was swollen from some hit.

Armstrong yelled back at him. “SHUT UP!” He kicked Tim, and He doubled over, clutching his stomach. “You,” Armstrong informed him, “Are the stupidest person I’ve ever met.” He signaled Reggie, who yanked Tim’s head back up by his hair.

Armstrong smiled coolly. He drew a gun from his belt and held it out, as if allowing Tim to inspect it. It was funny-looking, maybe old. “This is my favorite gun.” He said. “It’s German, one of the Mauser line. I use it on enemies I respect. You are not one of them.” He put the gun back in its holster. “Instead, I’m going to let Reggie here blow your brains out.”

Emily closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see what was about to happen. But instead of the bang she expected, she heard _laughter_.

She opened her eyes again. Tim was in the process of laughing his head off. The laughter was interspersed with pained wheezing; Reminding Emily yet again of his bruised ribs. Reggie still had the gun to his head, but he looked too confused to act. Armstrong just looked affronted. “What’s so funny?”

Between spurts of laughter Tim got out “Can’t… _believe_ … you said that… with a straight face!”

Armstrong growled and shifted like he was going to do something, but Tim wasn’t done. “Not to mention… you’re the stupid one here… didn’t even check… if I had my phone long enough… to dial!”

Armstrong’s eyes went wide and he snatched Tim’s phone off the floor. Seeing the screen, he swore loudly. “The line’s been open this whole time!”

“What!?” Reggie barked, though it was really more like “Wharf!?” with his swollen lip.

“Shoot him!” Armstrong ordered. “Shoot him now!”

But before Reggie could do anything, the window behind him exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... itty-bitty cliffhanger here. Sorrynotsorry. The good news is, you shouldn't have to wait a whole week for the next part, because I've already got the first draft written. Woo! after that it's just a short wind down chapter and the epilogue. (oooh man, I have to start thinking about my other WIPs again, don't I?)
> 
> As always, special thanks to everyone who left comments. They helped me move forward when this chapter was sticking. ;)
> 
> EDIT: I forgot to apologize for picking such an obscure villain. Sorry about that. The General is a really interesting character, but he's mostly a Tim only villain, so he's tragically underrepresented in other Bat books. He kind fell out of prominence when Tim did, AKA when the new 52 messed everything up... i'm not bitter. He was in one of the Rebirth issues right around when Tim "Died" so i'm hoping that when Tim return he'll return too. I miss good villains, plus, he has a really interesting/tragic history with Tim.


	7. Surprisingly Dangerous Mops and Disappointingly Un-Dangerous Explosives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all in the title.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I promised you wouldn't have to wait a week.
> 
> And thank you to everyone who commented!

Emily ducked her head, but none of the exploding glass shards made it all the way across the room. What did reach her was the sound of gunfire.

She looked back up. The room in front of her was in complete chaos. The thing that came through the window (a person, she realized) was taking the gunmen down one by one, unfazed by the flying bullets.

Within a minute, it was over. The gunmen were subdued; all but two were unconscious, and one of the conscious ones was nursing a broken arm. The other was Reggie.

The guy who came through the window stood up, and Emily finally got a good look at him.

How the _hell_ had Tim called _Superboy_?

He looked over at the hostage along the wall. “It’s okay everyone, coast is clear.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Um, Superboy? The coast is a little _too_ clear. Ulysses is gone.”

Superboy looked around, then swore in a way unbefitting of a superhero. He looked up at the ceiling. “And he’s recalling the operatives on the other floors.”

Tim looked at him. “Go. We can handle things here.”

Superboy nodded, and then flew out the window. (Luckily for the building’s window budget, it was the same window he came in through) Later, Emily would wonder why Superboy took orders from Tim, but at the moment it seemed perfectly natural.

Emily stood up off the wall and offered Jackie a hand up. Jackie declined it, pushing herself up.

They walked over to where Tim stood over Reggie in a reverse of their earlier position, keeping him from moving.

A few other people along the wall stirred. Van stumbled over. He was shaking badly and staring wide-eyed at his cousin like he’d never seen him before. He opened his mouth and closed it, gasping like a fish out of water.

Reggie lunged across the floor for his assault rifle, but Tim kicked him before he got close to it, and the stooped to pick it up. “Someone get some rope or handcuffs or something.” He turned around. “And someone call—“ His eyes widened suddenly. “—EVERYONE GET DOWN!”

Emily froze “Wha- OOF!” Tim tackling her to the floor cut off the end of the word. It hurt like hell, but probably less than the bullets passing through the space she’d occupied moments before would have.

Tim rolled off her, but kept low to the floor. He shoved Reggie’s gun off to the side. He’d tackled her behind a desk, so they were semi-safe from the gunfire.

She couldn’t see anyone else from where they were. Oh god, what if someone else was hurt? A good half dozen of them got up. What if someone else—

Tim interrupted her panic spiral. “WE FORGOT ABOUT THE TWO IN THE TESTING ROOM!” He yelled above the gunfire. “WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING!”

She nodded, mute.

“THAT ROOM HAS BLAST-PROOF WALLS RIGHT?”

She nodded again

“THEN THEY CAN ONLY SHOOT OUT THE DOOR. STAY LOW AND MOVE THAT WAY.” He pointed at the hostage wall. “GET OUT OF THEIR FIREING LINE.”

“WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?” She asked.

“HANDLE IT. GO.” He shooed her toward the wall, and then he was gone.

She crawled a few feet toward the wall, then stopped. She turned around, reaching out for where Reggie’s gun lay on the floor. She hesitated. She didn’t even know how to fire a gun.

Paralyzed by indecision, she looked up. Tim was somehow up against the testing room outer wall, mere feet away from the door. He held a mop in two hands like a staff. He looked just about ready to pounce.

Unfortunately, Emily could see something Tim couldn’t. (And doubtless couldn’t hear over the gunfire) Reggie was sneaking up on Tim from the hallway that lead to the bathrooms, holding an office chair over his head. If Tim would just turn, he would see it. Instead, it looked like Tim was about to get his brains bashed out by an office chair.

Emily didn’t know what possessed her, but she did the only thing she could think of. She yelled, pushed herself up to a kneeling position, grabbed Reggie’s gun, tried not to think about how she was in the line of fire now, and _hurled_ the gun across the room at Reggie with all her might.

Of course “with all her might” wasn’t actually that much, and the heavy gun fell far short of her intended target. Luckily, the yell and the sudden flying weapon managed to bring Tim’s attention to what was behind him.

He whirled, jabbing Reggie in the stomach with the mop at the same time, and Reggie dropped to the floor, chair on top of him.

Emily dropped back flat, pressing her face into the carpet, thanking every deity known to man that she hadn’t gotten shot during her stunt.

After a moment, she realized the gunfire had stopped. She slowly pushed herself up just enough to get a peak at the doorway.

Tim stood there, the handle of the mop pressed to the throat of one of the gunmen. The other lay on the floor, clearly recovering from having the wind knocked out of him.

Tim spoke up. “Is everyone alright?”

Someone yelled, “I think Van’s hyperventilating, but otherwise we’re good.”

There was a chorus of agreement around the office.

Without looking up from the guy he was holding, Tim asked, “Emily, you alright?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good. Now, if someone could bring me some rope, that would be great.”

 

* * *

 

Once the gunmen (even the unconscious ones) were tied up and the police alerted, Ron went to survey damage to the testing room. After only a second inside, he ran back out screaming. “There’s a— There’s a— THERE’S A BOMB!” He finally got out.

Tim looked up from dragging Reggie across the floor. “What?”

“BOMB!” Ron screamed. “In there! Time bomb! Five minutes!”

Instead of vocalizing the panicked scream Emily felt rising in her chest, Tim just sighed. “Will someone put this guy with the others? Thanks.” He looked around, eyes landing on Emily and Teddy, who had finished dragging their guy to the wall. “I might need help. You two wanna lean how to defuse a bomb?”

They followed him into the testing room. It looked like most of their stuff was fine, just messed up. It was clear that the guys had been here for the Thermashield, because their prototypes and blueprints had all been moved into boxes and placed by the door.

Of course, Emily only partly registered all this, because she mostly focused on the BIG FUCKING BOMB in the middle of the floor.

It was sitting in the plastic storage box she’d seen earlier. The lid leaned against it. Inside she could see a timer rapidly ticking down from 4:37 and a whole tangle of wires.

Tim knelt down beside it, took a look inside, and _snorted_. “Oh my god Ulysses, I expected better of you. This is a garbage bomb.”

“Uh, What?” Emily asked.

Tim gestured at it. “Look at this garbage. He must have outsourced it, no way would Ulysses be this dumb when building a bomb. He _knows_ how to build a bomb. This is Holywood nonsense. A ticking clock? Really? Terrible.” He reached in and pulled out a handful of wires. “Look at these. They aren’t even attached to anything. They’re just there to look good.” He held up the wires. “Oh my god. Is that a pair of earbuds? Oh my god it is.” He fished the earbuds out of the tangle. “Ooh these are nice earbuds. I’m keeping these.”

“Uh, Tim?” Teddy prompted.

Tim looked at him. “Yeah?”

“The, uh, the bomb’s still ticking.”

Tim looked at the bomb. The clock now read 2:52. “Oh, yeah.” He focused back on it.

He fished out a few more loose wires, leaving just a few, which wired the timer to what Emily guessed was some sort of extremely deadly explosive in the bottom of the box.

Looking at it, Tim laughed. “I can’t believe I spent all that time learning how to defuse bombs for this. Last time the thing was actually difficult. A kindergartener could defuse this.”

“Uh, Tim? Please just defuse the bomb.” Teddy requested.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just saying. This is disappointing.”

“Maybe you can complain _after_ we’re sure it won’t blow up?”

Tim harrumphed. “You take all the fun out of near death experiences.”

He picked up the timer (1:46) pried off the back (well, less pried as much as opened the hatch that looked like something you’d expect on the back of a TV remote) And pulled out a 9 volt battery. “There you go.” He flipped over the timer to show it had gone dead. “It’s ‘defused’—“ He did finger quotes. “—The bomb squad can deal with it when the police get here.”

“So Teddy and I didn’t need to be here at all.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He smiled. “You kept me on task, at least. Besides, I need your help to find the listening device.”

“Listening device?” Teddy asked.

“Reggie mentioned one, it’s how he knew about the Thermashield.” He looked under the table. “He must have put it in here while he was dating Emily.” He started rifling through papers.

“Wait a second, how do you know about that?”

“Jackie mentioned you dated a henchman. I guessed it was him based on your familiarity today.”

Emily felt a need to defend herself. “He wasn’t so… nasty… at the time.”

“They never are.”

Emily moved to help him look, and Teddy started searching his corner of the room. “You’ve dated a henchman?” she asked.

“Nah, I was talking about exes in general. But I was good friends with the leader of Cobra for a little while.”

“The creepy snake death cult!?”

“Like I said, it didn’t last long. Help me lift this.” He was holding one side of a big storage box labeled “Misc. Metal” She walked over and helped him lift it up. Holy hell it was heavy.

They set it down a few feet away, and Tim felt around the edges of the vent it had been siting in front of. “Ah-ha! Here it is!” He pealed up a little thing about the size of a quarter, which had wires running off it, and showed it to Emily. When he pulled on it, the wire pealed away from the wall and ran into the vent. He opened the grate and pulled out a battery pack the size of a hamster.

Emily looked at it. “How did we not notice that?”

Tim shrugged. “It was smart of him to hide it in the vent.” He sounded like he had more respect for Reggie now. “You would have noticed it elsewhere, and a smaller battery would have died ages ago.”

Teddy spoke up. “When did he—“

Just then, a police officer threw open the door so hard it bounced off the wall. “They said there’s a bomb in here!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim really was friends with the guy leading Cobra for a little while. And not even as Robin either. They guy went to Tim's school. He had a barcode on his foot. Comics are wild.
> 
> One more short chapter and then the epilogue! If I'm really on top of things it'll be up this evening or tomorrow.


	8. Never Trust a Gothamite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things return to whatever passes for "normal"

Once Tim explained to the panicked police officer that the bomb was harmless, he shuffled them out of the room and called the bomb squad. After that, Emily got swept off into a flurry of giving statements and getting checked for injuries.

At some point, Superboy showed up, a rather unhappy supervillain in tow.

Emily barely got to see it, as she was still in “interrogation” in Van’s office.

“I’m telling you! I have nothing to do with this!”

“Miss Locke,” The well-meaning but clearly incompetent police officer said, “This attack was planned by a man you dated, a man whom you’ve allowed access to this building before.”

“Yeah, and he tried to kill me before! I’m not with him! I almost got shot today!”

“Miss Locke, please—“

Just then the door swung open and Emily looked up. It was the police guy who Emily vaguely recognized as the detective who was in charge. Through the glass to the side of the door she could see Tim, who was clearly waiting for something.

“You can let her go, Officer Cole. Other witnesses vouch for her.” The detective said.

Through the glass, Tim gave her a thumbs up.

Officer Cole didn’t like that. “But—“

“She checks out, Officer Cole, we’re done. Miss Locke, you’re free to go.”

Emily stood. Remembering her manners, she said, “Thanks.” Then hurried out of the room.

Tim greeted her outside. “They finally realized you’ve got nothing to do with this?”

“Yeah.” She eyed him. “You did something, didn’t you?”

Tim shrugged nonchalantly. “if you count ‘telling them you saved my life, insisting they let you go, and reminding them of the Wayne foundation’s support of policemen’s charities’ as ‘doing something,’ then yes, I guess I did something.”

“Thanks.”

“You saved my life today. Least I could do.” He smiled.

“I’m pretty sure you saved my life _at least_ three times today.”

“Yeah, but throwing an assault rifle across the room was 300% more badass than anything I did.”

“Call it even?” She asked.

“Sure.” He said absently, looking at something to her left.

She glanced over to see Conner walking up, accompanied by a policewoman.

“They finally let you in?” Tim asked.

“Apparently trying to enter a crime scene after the police arrive is a ‘suspicious behavior’ that apparently requires sitting in the lobby for half an hour wondering if your fiancé is ok.”

“Poor baby, sitting in a lobby is sooo much worse than _getting shot at_.”

Conner nodded seriously, pretending not to notice the sarcasm. “See, that’s what I thought.”

“Mm-hm.” Tim pulled him in for a quick kiss. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of this crazy city and back to where things make sense.”

“I think you may have hit your head. You seem to be under the impression that things _make sense_ in _Gotham_.”

The police officer cleared her throat. “I’m supposed to escort people off the premises?”

Conner looked guilty. “Oh, right.”

“When does our flight leave?” Tim asked.

“Six.”

Tim looked at his watch. “Oh crap. We gotta run.”

He gave Emily a slightly awkward hug and she shook Conner’s hand. “Say bye to everyone for us.” Tim said.

“Yeah, and tell Van that Gotham is like this _all the time_ and he really won’t want to come to our wedding.”

“That won’t deter him.” She warned.

Conner shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

“See you around. If you ever end up in Gotham, come say hi.”

“Bye. And, thanks, you know, for saving my life.” Emily said.

Tim shook his head. “I should be thanking you.”

“Tim, we really have to go. We’re going to miss our flight. Bye Emily!”

Tim let Conner drag him into the elevator, waving. The police officer followed.

Emily waved back. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. “HAVE A GOOD FLIGHT!”

“WILL DO!”

The doors slid shut, and Emily went to find her stuff so she could go home.

On her way back to her slightly bullet-riddled desk she ran into Van. Or, well, the top of Van’s head behind Jackie’s desk.

“Van?” she asked. “What the heck?”

“Are they gone?”

It took Emily a moment to realize he meant Tim and Conner, not the gunmen. “Uh, yes.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

He popped up from behind the desk. “No reason.”

“You still haven’t let go of your irrational fear of Tim.” She accused.

“Hell no, I haven’t. That crazy bastard scares me even _more_ now.”

“Why?” she asked. “He pretty much saved all out loves today.”

Van looked at her as if she were missing something obvious. “That’s just it. Never trust selfless people Emily. They’re always hiding something.”

She crossed her hands over her chest. “Tim’s not hiding anything.”

He gave her a _look_ , then shook his head. “Listen, Emily. Gothamites are always hiding something. They’re secretive by nature. Nice people are always hiding something. A nice Gothamite? _Incredibly_ suspicious. That city doesn’t produce nice people.”

“Oh,” she said, remembering something and changing to subject at the same time. “They wanted me to tell you that something like this is sure to happen at their wedding, so if you didn’t want to go…”

“And miss an opportunity to convince Bruce to move me to the Gotham office!? Never!” He stalked off, probably to complain to Jackie about the police messing with the stuff in his office.

Emily went to find her stuff, glad to be heading home.

 

* * *

 

She slept in late Saturday morning. Normally she liked to use her Saturdays to clean or shop or finish leftover work. Today, she just watched Netflix in bed until noon. She felt like she’d earned it.

So that was how she didn’t even venture into her kitchen until hunger drove her there to seek out food.

When she entered, her eyes scanned the room for easy-to-make food. Then she did a double take. Something was sitting on her counter. Something she didn’t recognize.

Upon closer inspection, the ominous object appeared to be a gift basket. A nice one. As in, Three bottles of really, _really_ fine wine and a half dozen types of imported cheese and crackers nice. As in, probably upwards of three or four hundred dollars nice.

She had no idea how or why it was here.

Curious, she picked up the card sitting next to it on the counter, and read:

> Hey Emily, I know you and Tim decided to “Call it even” but here’s something to thank you for saving my fiancé’s life.
> 
> <3 Conner

Underneath, in different handwriting, it said:

> Honestly, if he didn’t want me to find out he was sending you a gift basket, he shouldn’t have bought it on _my_ credit card. But the sentiment is from both of us anyway. If you ever need anything, give me a call/text ~ (228-555-3725)
> 
> Thanks again!
> 
> -Tim
> 
> P.S.- My sister has been meaning to see some of Charm and maybe expand her education charity. Would you mind showing her around while she’s there? Her phone number is 228-555-2246. Keep in touch!

Emily smiled. Creepy appearance inside her apartment notwithstanding, the basket was a nice gesture. A ridiculously over-expensive gesture that she’d almost certainly feel the need to repay down the line, but a nice one nonetheless.

Well, in the meantime, she could gorge herself on really good wine and cheese. Besides, she’d always wanted to meet Cassandra Cain-Wayne anyway.

She should have known that Gotham-crazy would be hard to get rid of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was wondering, the whole situation was something Tim could have handled alone... if he was uninjured and in costume. Since he was neither of those things, he really did legitimately need Emily's help.


	9. Epilogue: Tim's Case Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t his formal case report, which has many more technical details; these are just the notes he scribbled down on a legal pad while he worked the case.
> 
> And thank you so, so much to everyone who commented throughout this story!

**Saturday 11:00 AM**

Three suspected Freeze henchmen @ warehouse waiting for “boss.” Prepping for job? => All they knew was “Charm City Wayne Security”

**Sunday 2:30 AM**

B ID’ed possible targets @ Wayne security. Most likely => “Thermashield” (Thermal-insulated force field generator) B flagged as weaponizable => also possible Bat-related applications.

**Sunday 10:45 PM**

Hitting pavement unsuccessful. Likely perps (Freeze?) already in Charm. Flying out in morning. Possible security leak => R&D director Emily Locke => Fraternized w/ henchman before. (Reggie Aaronson- Low level Riddler henchman) Investigate Miss Locke.

Additional note: Took a bullet to the hip today => Glanced off armor, some bruising. Shouldn’t be a problem other than v small limp.

**Monday 6:00 PM**

Investigation of possible leaks unsuccessful. Locke doesn’t fit the profile, but continue to monitor. Other employees seem willing to share projects @ only slight prompting => leak may have been bragging. Continue to investigate.

**Tuesday 5:30 AM**

Found and dismantled three Freeze hideouts. Met up with Crimson Fox. She is unaware of possible threat => did mention using Wayne Security tech during so-called “Cold Season.” Unsure what this means. May be clear after sleep.

**Tuesday 7:00 PM**

Emily Locke unlikely to be security leak => At least not intentionally. Conversation w/ Jackie (? Last name?) Revealed details of the previous incident. Still no leads on Freeze.

**Wednesday 4:15 AM**

One lead on Freeze => did not pan out. Ended in knife wound to inner calf. Non-threatening, but required stitches. Also bruised ribs.

This case is really starting to frustrate me. Contacted Oracle for fresh eyes. She suggested luring perps out. I asked B to approve the Thermashield. Hoping for leads.

**Wednesday 5:00 PM**

Popped stitches @ the office today. Unfortunately only option was help from Emily Locke. Luckily she doesn’t seem to be involved in this other than tangentially. Unfortunately she now has suspicions => must misdirect.

Thermashieled approval has led to plenty of chatter. Possible leads on perp location. Still uncertain of leak. May be back in Gotham office?

**Wednesday 11:30 PM**

Got sidetracked assisting Crimson Fox w/ local villain Jack-o’-lantern.

Can’t be certain of handling this case on my own in time. Called Kon 4 back up. Should be here tomorrow.

**Thursday 5:45 PM**

Thermashield almost finished => window is closing. Some leads, including an apartment in MuTo used as a staging area. Abandoned, but recent. Perps are packing military-grade weapons.

**Friday 1:00 AM**

Found Freeze hideout. Freeze is not responsible for this. Real perp will almost certainly move ~~tomorrow~~ today. Kon will continue to investigate while I go into office.

**Friday 6:30 PM**

On plane to Gotham now.

Case closed. UHA in custody. Still unclear on all motives. Almost certainly wanted to weaponize and sell, but we should keep an eye out.

Emily Locke => Possible new asset. Will pass on to the others as Charm City contact. In the meantime, I’m glad to be heading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! (Or is it?) (yes it is but there may be a sequel at some point down the road) Thank you everyone for reading!


End file.
